The thread with the Dragon Age II review is abuzz with speculation as to whether EA has payed The Escapist for a positive review or something similarly shady is going on. Below is my analysis and some of what I thought to be flaws, inconsistencies, or general oddities in The Escapist's review of Dragon Age II. I particularly noticed a blatant lack of examples or supporting material for much of the comparisons in the original, with use of phrases such as "feels somehow", and one blatant falsehood. Professional writing dictates that an opinion is backed up with some sort of substance, in a review this usually amounts to an example of something in the game that made you feel the way you do about a particular subject.
As to whether I think EA payed the Escapist, my answer is who the hell knows, there's no use speculating, but for what its worth my gut says no. I personally don't think EA has payed for a positive review, but what I do think is that this was a poor review, not particularly because of the score itself but because of the arguments and statements that are simply incorrect or devoid of any supporting examples/comparisons.
I understand that making this thread may cause mod action against me, I hope this is not the case but as the rules are very much up to the interpretation of the moderators on the site I fully realize it is a distinct possibility, and thus would like to note that I don't mean this thread as any sort of insult or personal attack on Greg Tito (reviewer) or his other work, it is merely what I hope is considered an appropriately respectful negative opinion toward a single piece of writing.
The parts of the review I had problems with are below, with my comments in italics.
I would like to reiterate that my personal opinion is that he was not paid off, I can't say that for sure of course because I have no special information, but that is what I believe, I think most people are too quick to accuse reviewers of being paid off.
EDIT: Many people say that this is the result of trolling because the majority of the scores are 1's or 0's, this is a result of Metacritic often being treated as a pass/fail or like/dislike system, which while I admit is a problem for the system as a whole, it does not invalidate the score. The reason it doesn't invalidate it is because every game on Metacritic has to deal with that same problem, and as long as they all share the same ruleset and system comparison between them is fair game. Do you remember how much nerd rage there was over the changes in Mass Effect 2? ME2 has a user rating of 9.0. The only variable that has changed is the game being reviewed.
Do I think DA2 deserves a 4? No, it deserves a 6.5 or maybe 7 in my opinion, but that's not the point, the point is that this low score shows that the game was not up to standards for the general population.
So given that it's not an inherent issue with Metacritic (since other Bioware games also used Metacritic and did just fine) and it's not organized trolling (because if you think that I direct you to the Conspiracy Theories thread in "off topic forums) the only argument left is that the same size is too small.
Well, actually, in order to ensure with 99% confidence that the sample size properly represents the population of Dragon Age II players (which I chose 10,000,000 as the size of that population for this example) with a mere 4% margin of error, a sample size of 1,040 people is required, which is hundreds less than the number of rating on metacritic. A 95% confidence level is accepted in a court of law, so a 99% confidence level hopefully convinces you that this is not a coincidence due to a small sample size.
As to whether I think EA payed the Escapist, my answer is who the hell knows, there's no use speculating, but for what its worth my gut says no. I personally don't think EA has payed for a positive review, but what I do think is that this was a poor review, not particularly because of the score itself but because of the arguments and statements that are simply incorrect or devoid of any supporting examples/comparisons.
I understand that making this thread may cause mod action against me, I hope this is not the case but as the rules are very much up to the interpretation of the moderators on the site I fully realize it is a distinct possibility, and thus would like to note that I don't mean this thread as any sort of insult or personal attack on Greg Tito (reviewer) or his other work, it is merely what I hope is considered an appropriately respectful negative opinion toward a single piece of writing.
The parts of the review I had problems with are below, with my comments in italics.
It's not just the Metacritic user score either, Game Informer gave it an 83, an all time low for a modern Bioware RPG. The Escapist review of 100/100 is a statistical outlier (with the next highest review being a 94), which doesn't immediately condemn it, but when you combine that fact with the problems and inconsistencies shown above, it certainly paints a picture that the reviewer may not have left his bias at the door when sitting down to review the game.
I would like to reiterate that my personal opinion is that he was not paid off, I can't say that for sure of course because I have no special information, but that is what I believe, I think most people are too quick to accuse reviewers of being paid off.
EDIT: Many people say that this is the result of trolling because the majority of the scores are 1's or 0's, this is a result of Metacritic often being treated as a pass/fail or like/dislike system, which while I admit is a problem for the system as a whole, it does not invalidate the score. The reason it doesn't invalidate it is because every game on Metacritic has to deal with that same problem, and as long as they all share the same ruleset and system comparison between them is fair game. Do you remember how much nerd rage there was over the changes in Mass Effect 2? ME2 has a user rating of 9.0. The only variable that has changed is the game being reviewed.
Do I think DA2 deserves a 4? No, it deserves a 6.5 or maybe 7 in my opinion, but that's not the point, the point is that this low score shows that the game was not up to standards for the general population.
So given that it's not an inherent issue with Metacritic (since other Bioware games also used Metacritic and did just fine) and it's not organized trolling (because if you think that I direct you to the Conspiracy Theories thread in "off topic forums) the only argument left is that the same size is too small.
Well, actually, in order to ensure with 99% confidence that the sample size properly represents the population of Dragon Age II players (which I chose 10,000,000 as the size of that population for this example) with a mere 4% margin of error, a sample size of 1,040 people is required, which is hundreds less than the number of rating on metacritic. A 95% confidence level is accepted in a court of law, so a 99% confidence level hopefully convinces you that this is not a coincidence due to a small sample size.
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